The adventures of Gary and Carolyn living aboard and continuously cruising the uk canals and rivers on narrowboat Inca

Friday, 27 June 2014

Leaving Llangollen

We left Llangollen basin on Monday morning at 09.00 which was a big mistake. In the 4 miles between Llangollen and Trevor we met 19 boats heading to Llangollen with most of them being hire boats. Some of them even had crew walking ahead of the boat in the wide section to check for on coming boats. For a novice hirer it must be a very daunting experience steering through this very narrow and twisty canal.

Approaching the lift bridge as you leave Llangollen which thankfully is always left raised raised.

We had two boats following us and on many of the corners we all had problems with with some of the inexperienced hire boaters. But there were no bad feelings or falling outs and I must say the hirers on this canal have been very good and considerate, apart from a live aboard boat who decided to run his engine until 21.45 at night in the basin. The general rule is not to run your engine or Generator between 20.00 and 08.00. It turned out he had problems with his charging system and wanted to watch TV , Although nobody said anything to him there were a lot of unhappy boaters the following morning.

This is the only view you get of the Pontcysylite Aqueduct as you approach Trevor.

Here we go again, for the fourth time we cross the Aqueduct, and with me steering Carolyn assumes her normal position of hiding down in the cabin. It is very strange how I was stressed going up Dinas Bran which is 1050 feet and Carolyn was not at all bothered yet she didn’t like the 140 feet of the Aqueduct.

With it being very windy it certainly made the crossing a bit more exciting.

This boat was moored in Froncysylite. Cat Carrying , what's that all about ?

What a stupid name ……………………………………………………………….for a boat of course .

I wonder what Inca would look like with a bit of cladding like this ?. Mind you I don’t think I would employ this person to do it.

Another good boat name.

Not sure what happened here , but this is just before you drop down New Marton top lock and a very straight section of canal. The force of this hire boat hitting the bank nearly made the ladies fall off the back of the boat.

This was good . Approaching New Marton lock and this is their first ever lock and they used the pole to guide the boat all the way into the lock, but they were having fun and enjoying themselves, which is what its all about. Its so difficult to get a good picture of a Heron as they normally fly off before you get anywhere near them but we managed to get this one of a Heron in a field. We were a bit disappointed that we have only seen one Kingfisher in all our time on the Llangollen and that was only a flash of blue and gold as it flew along the canal. With Kingfishers being shy birds maybe this canal is just too busy for them .

We are now going to put in a few long days and try and get off the Llangollen canal by Thursday as they give rain coming in at the weekend. The 44 miles from Llangollen to Hurleston junction should take us about 25 hours as long as everything goes to plan and there are not any hold ups.

" The general rule is not to run your engine or Generator between 20.00 and 08.00. "

If you are referring to the basin at Llangollen, if you check the notices around the basin you will see that engines or generators should not be run between 18.00 & 08.00, this, I believe, is a planning condition. Anyway there is free electrical connections, so you should not have to run engines !